Are you looking for a challenging position in a dynamic setting? The
Amsterdam School of Historical Studies (ASH) currently has a vacant PhD position affiliated with the international project DICES (Digital Initiative for Classics: Epic Speeches), led by principal investigators Dr. Berenice Verhelst (UvA) and Dr. C. Forstall (Mt. Allison University, Canada). The main supervisor will be Prof. Dr. Caroline Kroon. The Amsterdam School of Historical Studies is one of the five Research Schools within the
Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research (AIHR).
You will be part of the Greek and Latin Literature section of ACASA (Amsterdam Centre for Ancient Studies and Archaeology) and the research groups ‘Digital History’ and ‘Classical (con)texts’. The ‘Digital History’ group is an interdisciplinary initiative focusing on digital methods to explore, understand, explain and represent historical sources. The ‘Classical (con)texts’ group looks at classical texts in their contemporary context combining narratological, linguistic and intertextual approaches. The overarching research theme of the group is currently “style”. It is the central topic of an ongoing seminar series and a common factor in several PhD and Postdoc projects, including this PhD position.
What are you going to do? A defining feature of epic is the mimetic representation of direct speech alongside narrator text. The role of speech in characterizing the epic heroes was acknowledged by the earliest critics: Aristotle already praised Homer for his skill of finding the fitting words for each character to say. Beyond the individual, speech reflects the social dynamics and power structures in the world of epic. Meanwhile, in the course of Antiquity, epic poets continued to portray speech in diverse ways reflecting cultural and linguistic change.
The brand-new
DICES Database of Direct Speech provides a comprehensive reference for epic speech representation from Homer to Late Antiquity, opening up novel possibilities for studying aspects of style and characterization and allowing for wide-angled diachronic and cross-linguistic comparisons. You will explore the possibilities of a combined narratological (Verhelst), computational (Forstall) and linguistic approach (Kroon) to epic speech while working on a research project and epic text corpus (Latin and/or Greek) of your own design. The three main parameters set out for this project are the following:
- Focus on characterization.
A narratological framework allows you to study characterization in direct speech from a variety of viewpoints. You can choose to focus on transtextual characters (characters with a stable identity that make an appearance in multiple literary texts), on social or ethnic groups of characters (e.g. women, slaves, Trojans, …) and/or narrative roles (e.g. the trusted friend or the senior advisor) or relations (e.g. speeches between relatives).
We are interested in quantitative, measurable aspects of the speech and conversation style of epic heroes. You will be combining the theoretical frameworks of (socio-)linguistics and conversational analysis and working with state of the art AI-based language models to analyze your corpus. Training opportunities for working with these methods will be provided.
- Focus on diachronicity/broadening the canon.
We aim to broaden the canon of epic poetry and focus on diachronic trends. The
DICES Database includes a broad range of postclassical authors as well as epic subgenres and -types (epyllia, hymns, didactic poetry, biblical epic) which are often not considered in surveys of epic poetry. You are invited to choose a diachronic subcorpus in alignment with your research project, taking into account the changing political and social contexts of the relevant time as well as the different conventions relating to the subgenre.
For more information on the
DICES Database see:
https://www.dices.uni-rostock.de/en/about-dices/Tasks and responsibilities: - Completion and defence of a PhD thesis within the period of appointment (four years, full time);
- Presentations of intermediate research results at workshops and conferences both in the domain of Classics and in Digital Humanities;
- Publication of at least one single-authored, peer reviewed article and a series of blog posts on the DICES project blog;
- Participation in meetings of the Digital History and Classical Context research groups and the international Epic Speeches Network of the DICES project;
- Participation in the PhD programme of OIKOS, the National Research School in Classical Studies in the Netherlands;
- Participation in the PhD training programmes of the Amsterdam School of Historical Studies and the Favulty of Humanities;
- (co-)organization of knowledge dissemination activities such as training sessions in digital methods for classics;
- Teaching in BA programmes in years 2 and 3 of the PhD project.